DRUG CZAR TO VISIT DALLAS FOR BRIEFING ON 'CHEESE' EFFORTS

White House Official Hopes To Keep Cheap Heroin From Spreading

WASHINGTON - President Bush's drug czar will get a front-line tour
today of Dallas' battle with "cheese" heroin, a potentially lethal
form of the drug often targeted at teenage users.

John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy, will meet with representatives of the regional task
force of local law enforcement, public health and education officials
to learn more about a drug that has been linked to 23 student deaths
since January 2005. Although cheese, a mix of black tar heroin and
over-the-counter cold or sleeping pills, does not seem to be in use
much beyond Dallas, the drug czar wants to find out what the federal
government can do to help keep it from spreading. "He will get
hopefully a first-hand and in-depth report and brief on exactly what
this phenomenon, what this issue is about," said Scott Burns, deputy
director for state, local and Indian affairs for the drug policy
office. "Over the past six months to a year, we continue to hear more
and more about cheese." Cheese has raised concerns among many
anti-drug advocates because it is cheap - sometimes as little as $2
per dose - and is sometimes used in the recruitment of gang members.
Plus, it poses risks of addiction for children who may not know
they're buying heroin because of the innocuous name. Debbie
Meripolski, executive director of the Greater Dallas Council on
Alcohol and Drug Abuse, who has worked to arrange the briefing, said
Mr. Walters will hear from her, Dallas police, educators and police
from the Dallas Independent School District and a parent who has been
involved in the area's efforts against cheese.

"We want to make sure he's briefed on what is going on here," she
said. "This problem is out of the ordinary."

One message that Ms. Meripolski plans to stress is the need to
maintain or increase funding for treatment programs.

"There is a very short supply of adolescent treatment facilities in
Dallas," she said. "We're short of treatment resources everywhere."
Mr. Walters will probably be sympathetic to that plea, Mr. Burns
said, referring to drug addiction as a disease and a public health
issue. "If we're truly concerned about the disease of addiction and
we know you catch it when you're 13, 12 and 11, we want to find out
who's suffering from this disease and get them treatment," Mr. Burns
said. He added that President Bush has consistently advocated
increased funding for treatment and drug testing programs.

"Our goal is to make federal funds available to every school district
that makes a request" for testing money, Mr. Burns said of testing
programs. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, wants heroin and cheese added to
the list of drugs specifically addressed by national anti-drug
education efforts. The drug policy office has expressed concern that
adding cheese to the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, which
focuses mainly on marijuana, prescription drug abuse and underage
drinking, might spread awareness of it beyond Dallas.

While in North Texas today, Mr. Walters will also announce a federal
grant to help the Ennis Independent School District expand its random
student drug testing beyond the steroid screening ordered this year
by the Legislature. He will also announce similar grants to five
Houston-area school districts today. John Doslich, the deputy
superintendent in Ennis, said the federal funds are a welcome
addition to the district's program to randomly test students
participating in all extracurricular activities. That program is due
to start in the next school year.

He said the Ennis program is primarily designed to give students in
extracurricular activities "an extra reason to say no" and grew from
concerns raised by parents of student athletes.

The most expensive part of the program will be the steroid screening
for athletes, Mr. Doslich said. Those tests can run to as much as
$150 per test as opposed to $15 for a basic screening.

Although the drug czar is still working to find the best ways to
combat cheese, he strongly believes that random student drug testing
could be a powerful tool, Mr. Burns said. Cheese use will trigger a
positive test for heroin. DISD allows all parents and students in
grades six through 12 to sign up for random drug tests, said Linda
Yater, executive director for student services for the district. That
program, now in its second year, is paid for by a federal grant of
$204,000 per year for three years.

Dallas has no plans to require students to submit to random testing
beyond the state program in the works to test high school athletes
for steroids, Ms. Yater said, but the district will probably consider
an expansion for other extracurricular activities in the future.